Wyoming EPSCoR welcomes new director

Dr. Brent Ewers with
Summer Research Apprenticeship
Program students Virgil Morrison (left)
and Sarah Fanning (right).

When asked what will be the biggest life change in accepting the position as EPSCoR Director, Dr. Brent Ewers responded: not teaching LIFE 1010. Ewers has been teaching the General Biology course since he came to the University of Wyoming 12 years ago.

“Normally I would’ve done my first lecture a few hours ago so it seems a little strange,” he says about not teaching during the fall semester. LIFE 1010 aside, Brent is thrilled to take on his new position at EPSCoR.

A father of two sons and husband to Samantha Ewers, who is the Research Database Manager for the Wyoming Center for Environmental Hydrology and Geophysics (WyCEHG), Brent is joining EPSCoR from the Botany Department. His main focus is Plant Physiological Ecology, a field that has played an integral part in EPSCoR over the past several years by way of WyCEHG and Summer Research Apprentice Program (SRAP). After being engaged in these programs as a scientist, he’s excited to work with them from the director’s chair.

“One thing I’ve really enjoyed as a scientist in WyCEHG is that I’ve had interactions with the EPSCoR staff,” says Ewers. “I’m very excited to learn a lot more from experts in education outreach and diversity.”

He is stepping into the role formerly held by Dr. Anne Sylvester, who took the EPSCoR Director position in 2011. It was under her leadership that the current Track-1 Grant came to be at Wyoming EPSCoR. Sylvester’s research focus is in maize development and genomics and, fittingly, she is moving on to a position as Program Director of the Plant Genome Research Program at the National Science Foundation.

Although she’s excited for her new opportunity, she’s proud of the progress EPSCoR has made and excited for the path it will follow in the future.

Dr. Anne Sylvester

“Working with EPSCoR has been an incredible experience,” she says. “NSF EPSCoR really focuses on collaborative, interdisciplinary research, hence the project that was developed is one that brings three different disciplines together to make something new…Watching that interdisciplinarity develop was kind of like a snowball rolling downhill. Once it starts, you see people changing, you see the science changing."

And she’s happy to pass the baton to Ewers. “The goal is to have EPSCoR impact the state of Wyoming. I think it’s been pretty successful so far. With Brent taking over, it’s just going to skyrocket.”

Brent is also excited about what the future holds for EPSCoR, particularly as he and his staff look toward the next grant a few years down the road. “There’s a really strong history of EPSCoR supporting programs that then have impacts for decades afterwards. I’m really looking forward to being a part of that and seeing what new programs can come out of it.”

By Manasseh Franklin

Faces of SRAP: Sarah Fanning and Virgil Morrison

Although they’re still getting all of the details of their project worked out, Sarah Fanning and Virgil Morrison both enjoy what they’re doing in the Botany department, and they love collecting ecological data.

“We went out to the field last week to measure trees,” says Sarah Fanning, a senior from Colorado. “That was really fun.”

From left to right:
Virgil Morrison, Dr. Brent Ewers, Sarah Fanning

“I’ve learned a lot in the lab, but I definitely like to be outside,” says Virgil, a recent high school graduate from Riverton, WY.

Sarah and Virgil are working in Dr. Brent Ewers Botany lab this summer, studying the effects of pine beetles for their Summer Research Apprentice Program research project.

Sarah and Virgil have different passions, but both of them greatly enjoy science.

Sarah enjoys Paleontology, and plans to make a career out of it.

“I’ve never done Botany before, I’ve never worked with anything that hasn’t been dead for 50 million years,” she says. “I’m excited to see how living things are right now, in their purest form instead of their fossilized form.”

Like Sarah, Virgil enjoys science, specifically Biology.

“I like seeing and learning about what’s going on where I go,” he says. “I just really enjoy it, I have a really good teacher, so that made it fun for me.”

Both Sarah and Virgil look forward to a summer filled with research and exciting new opportunities.

SRAP is a six-week, intensive research program for high school students. It is based at the University of Wyoming and is sponsored by Wyoming EPSCoR. To learn more about the program, click here, or search "SRAP" in the archives.

By Robin Rasmussen

Photo by Robert Waggener

SRAP Student Spotlight: Marten Baur and drought research

SRAPer: Marten Baur

Home state: Wyoming

Grade in school: Senior

Plans after high school: Attend a university

Drought is a part of life that citizens of Wyoming understand completely. Because of the huge impact of drought on the Wyoming way of life, many scientists at the University of Wyoming are currently studying droughts and their effects on plants. Marten Baur, a Wyoming high school student, is one of those researchers.

Marten is working with Dr. Brent Ewers in the Botany department at the University of Wyoming for his SRAP project.

“My project helps to understand soil water potential for plants. When plants are in a drought, the soil is dried up,” says Marten. “The water potential is basically water’s ability to move to another area, such as up the plant.”

 
Marten is working to understand what happens when the soil doesn’t hold much water.
 
“As the plant is trying to draw up the water, it generates tension and that tension, if the soil is too dry, it will cause the plant to have too much tension and it will cavitate,” says Marten.
 
When a plant cavitates, it makes it more difficult to get water to the top of the plant.

 “So when soil is wet, it has low negative pressure which is good for the plant,” Marten says. “That means it doesn’t need as much tension to pull the water up and get it to the canopy.”

 
Although the research Marten is conducting must be precise, he enjoys it.

 “I like being outside, but the science parts are definitely interesting. As tedious as this is, the concepts are cool.”

 
The research that Marten is conducting is crucial to better understanding droughts and their effects.  His SRAP project will have a large impact on citizens all over the state of Wyoming.

SRAP is a six-week long intensive research program based at the University of Wyoming and sponsored by Wyoming EPSCoR.

By Robin E. Rasmussen and Kali S. McCrackin
Photo by Robin E. Rasmussen

SRAP Student Spotlight: Danny Tran and soil water potential

SRAPer: Danny Tran

Home state: Colorado

Year in School: Junior

Plans after high school: Go to a university, possibly studying medicine

Understanding how plants receive and use water is critical for the future of forest health and development. Danny Tran is working to add to this body of knowledge.

“I’m working on soil water potential,” says Danny. “And I’m also working on the hydraulic system for the cavitation of xylems.”

The xylem is the part of a plant that moves water and nutrients from the root to the rest of the plant.

“The cavitations of xylems happen when the tissue in the xylem burst, because of air bubbles,” says Danny. “That’s not good for the plant.” 

Danny is working with Dr. Brent Ewers in the Botany department. The research that Danny is conducting is crucial to understanding the relationship between soil and water in plants.

“With the hydraulics, you spin a centrifuge and you see the pull of the water column,” says Dr. Ewers. “If you pull too much, it breaks. The soil measurements tell us how much the soil pulls on the water column, so then we could see how dry it is out at the field and how much that is causing plants to cavitate the field.”

For Danny, getting into the field to collect samples to study is one of the most interesting parts of his research project. 

“I like going into the field and collecting samples, but I think the machines we use are actually pretty interesting,” says Danny.

“We use this machine, the WP4, to see the soil water. Then, we take a lot of measurements, like temperature and the MPa.” says Danny.

“The WP4 is an instrument that measures the water potential of a porous medium like soil,” says Dr. Ewers. “The principle is that the humidity in a small chamber equilibrates with the water potential, or how hard the soil pulls on the water, in the sample. The chamber is cooled down until water condenses on a mirror inside the chamber. The point of condensation is equal to the water potential of the soil. Thus, measurements of temperature are used to calculate the suction of water in the soil in units of MPa.”

“I didn’t believe they could make a machine that could do its job like this one,” Danny says.  “And since it’s also a homemade hydraulic system, I think that’s pretty cool.”

SRAP is a six-week long intensive research program based at the University of Wyoming and sponsored by Wyoming EPSCoR.

By Robin E. Rasmussen and Kali S. McCrackin
Photo by Robin E. Rasmussen